E-mail this article

Sending your article

By Peter Abraham, Globe Staff

SEATTLE — Bobby Valentine had breakfast with John Henry this morning. This afternoon, Valentine remains the manager of the Red Sox.

Henry did not hold a press conference. But he spoke to several reporters individually and made it clear that he is not here to fire Valentine. It appears for now that Valentine will remain on the job at least through the end of the season.

"For any of you who are sorry that I didn’t get fired, I’m sorry that you’re sorry. But I don’t think I did this morning, if that’s what you thought was going to happen," Valentine told reporters.

Valentine was asked what he and Henry talked about

“You know you don’t go there. What do you think, we talked about art? Liverpool? We talked about baseball and our team, obviously. Things that he’s concerned with are the things that I deal with.”

Ben Cherington, who did meet with reporters, said the losing streak was a product of the roster and the team's desire to evaluate young players.

"It’s hard to watch. It’s a reflection on all of us when things aren’t going well. I think we knew when we made the trade that we weren’t helping our team in games the rest of this year. But, that said, its still been hard to watch," he said.

Cherington said that while wins and losses are the bottom line, it's hard to use the team's record to evaluate the team or Valentine. He is looking at how the team prepares for games, how the roster is utilized and other factors.

Cherington feels the losing streak is at least partly the result of the Aug. 25 trade that sent Josh Beckett and Adrian Gonzalez to the Dodgers. The Sox, he said, are showing enough effort. It’s talent they lack in the wake of several trades and myriad injuries.

“A lot of that is just simply because the team, the roster, is at a different point than it was earlier in the year [and] in past seasons and it’s different then it will be down the road,” he said.

“We’re trying to learn some things about guys and sometimes that doesn’t put us in a position to be as competitive as we’d like to [be] to win games. It’s hard to watch. It’s a reflection on all of us, mostly me. It’s the painful part of the process. We made a big deal because we like it would give us the best chance to build the next really good team. We’re in that painful part of the process where things aren’t going well right now.

"There are things that we need to accomplish the rest of the year we can accomplish. There are things we need to do to learn more about players, get players healthy and put guys in the best position so that we can be well-informed on them in the offseason. It is harder to do that when you’re staring at a loss at the end of every day. It’s harder for everyone to get the work done that needs to get done. But the only choice we have is to do it. To show up the next day and make sure the work gets done I believe that will happen.

Cherington said wins and losses are “certainly not” the best way to evaluate Valentine given the state of the roster.

Cherington was asked what criteria he would consider in that case.

“How well the team prepares,” he said. “The evaluation of players on the roster, how well we’re utilizing the roster. Those [are] things Bobby does well. And then there’s things that are probably more subtle, things that happen throughout the day throughout the course of the season with players on the field, off the field that are part of creating that team dynamic that we want."

Also: The Red Sox called up RHP Chris Carpenter to bolster their battered bullpen. ... Cherington said that the organization remains hopeful of David Ortiiz returning to action this season.